Saturday, December 12, 2015

Taking in Sorrow, part II

Confucian Temple, Shanghai

Photograph by the author

Taking in sorrow intentionally becomes a deep practice.

Intentional suffering cannot be an external action taken in external directions. It begins there; but external suffering becomes almost at once an attachment to the external, and every attachment to the external needs to be clearly seen and defined in relationship to the nature of one’s inwardness.

Even mindfulness easily becomes an external practice; we take almost everything this way, I find. It isn’t unless we discover the living nature of inwardness as it actively manifests that we can begin to distinguish the external from the internal; until then, the natural effortlessly poses as the spiritual, and a person has no hope of distinguishing the difference; there is no comparative. Perhaps it’s the awakening of this comparative that serves as the greatest shock a person ever gets, because up until then, one believes absolutely and irrevocably in the external—and the chimeric, ersatz version of the inner spiritual realm which it creates.

Yet when it finally comes alive, the inner opens into a realm of much finer vibrations; and they penetrate the body and the Being in ways that feed other, unknown parts. It’s the unknown nature of these parts and the energies that rule them that becomes interesting; one is drawn into an inner world of participation quite unlike the outer world. This inner world of participation provides an intimacy impossible to achieve or understand in any other way; one becomes a person. This is what the finer energy does; it imparts personhood through essence.

The inner energy feeds the growth of the spiritual nature; and the spiritual nature is there exclusively to receive love and sorrow. This work needs to be undertaken alongside and in conjunction with ordinary life, but is not mixed with it.

Actively saying yes, in an inner sense, to sorrow is to go towards the sorrow, to drink it as one would water. It is a kind of wine, actually; so the energy of life as it arrives undergoes a transformation as it enters us. We can participate actively in that transformation as it happens, but only to the extent that we are willing. It’s entirely capable of taking place automatically, whether I am aware of it or not. It’s my willingness that makes a difference and changes the nature of the enterprise.

The fact is that all I am speaking of here relates directly and exactly to the Presence of God. There is no need to call it any other thing, even as one attempts to define it in greater detail by particulars. The Presence of God fills us; we await it. There isn’t anything else worth waiting for, even as we see the attachment of our lower parts to the world as it is. We can leave that be; there is little to be done for it anyway, and it will have its end, in any event. What matters is this turning towards God; and there is no other worthwhile turning than the turning that takes place through suffering, and allowing the sorrow of God to enter us. Here is where water truly turns to wine.

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Recommendations and current reading list

Lee's current reading list (all recommended)

The Iceberg- Marion Coutts. This extraordinary book deserves to be read by every individual engaged in an inner search. The questions it raises about life, death, and relationship are framed by the authors responsibilities to her very young child and her dying husband. This is a book about real work in life, not esoteric theory.

Far From The Tree: Andrew Solomon. Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. Highly recommended.

Inner Yoga, Sri Anirvan—This extraordinary book is essential reading for any serious student of Gurdjieff or Yoga practice. Written at a level of both practical and philosophical discourse well above other contemporary work, Anirvan investigates the deep roots of Yoga practice, theory, and philosophy in a deeply sensitive series of insights. Of particular interest is the extraordinary and challenging piece on Buddhi and Buddhiyoga, which examines the questions of practice, life, and death with an acuity rarely encountered in other work of this nature.

Divine Love and Wisdom, Emmanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg gives us a detailed report on Reality as received from higher sources, reflecting many Truths one would be wise to study carefully. Readers will be astounded by the extraordinary degree of correlation between Swedenborg and Ibn 'Arabi. Many fundamental principles introduced by Gurdjieff are also expounded on in fascinating detail by Swedenborg. All of Swedenborg's works are well worth reading.

The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, Ibn 'Arabi. Another real gem, this book ought to be read by every seeker on the spiritual path. If you can only find the time to read one book by Ibn 'Arabi, this ought to be the one. By turns lighthearted, serious, insightful, and ingenius, al 'Arabi introduces us to our inner government character by character, explains their relationships, and indicates how to bring them into a state of harmonious cooperation. Written with love, the book deftly manages to avoid being didactic, delivering instead a sensitive, poetic, and even romantic look at how to organize our inner Being.

The Bezels of Wisdom—Ibn al 'Arabi. A compendium of observations about the nature of "The Reality"—what al 'Arabi calls God— from a 13th century Sufi master. This towering work easily holds its own against—and is worthy of comparison to—13th century masterpieces from other major religious traditions such as Dogen's Shobogenzo and Meister Eckhart's sermons.